Chivalry's Not Completely Dead
by Churro-Dragon
Summary: Toni and Roderich talk about knights, royalty, and other romance-tinged tokens of the past. Not mentioned, but set in the late thirties. One shot, Human AU with a hint of SpAustria.


"I like old things." Toni put his book under his head and stared up into the bare branches. "There's just a certain, you know, feel to them that you don't get with all the bland modern rubbish floating around. Nowadays if you want to fight a war, you just feed hunks of iron and lead to a factory and let it crap out machine guns for you and your friends. But back then, weapons were beautiful, carefully forged to perfection with Toledo steel, with elegant bells and pommels." He sighed longingly, remembering the time he had first seen the display of elaborately decorated cinquedeas, the Italian casual swords in the private collection.

Roderich frowned and adjusted his glasses. "I'm sure that's easy for us to say now, although I think that if I were to have any of my own internal organs fatally punctured, It certainly wouldn't matter to me whether it was by bullet or blade." He gave Toni a look reminiscent of a teacher reprimanding a student. "Beautiful or not, a weapon is a weapon. War is war, no matter what tools you use to fight it."

In response, Toni took out his book again, casually flipping through the illustrations of medieval knights and kings. "I guess you're right, as usual. But things are different now than they were before, you can't deny that. It seems like it was–you know–a more noble time, back then. There were rules to combat, and honor and chivalry and stuff like that."

"You'd better stop talking before you start tilting at windmills, now."

"That sounds like a marvelous idea." Toni gave a mischievous grin. "I could probably borrow Professor Langland's suit of armor, and hey, maybe I can convince one of the rich students to lend me a noble steed, swipe a spear from the collection–I'll be set!"

"Set to be expelled, that's for sure." Roderich flipped through the pages of his notebook and tried to look busy, but Toni wasn't propped himself back up and leaned against the tree.

"Come on now, it's not like you even have any more homework left to do." he said. "Now be honest with me. Don't you think I'd make a dashing knight?"

Roderich sighed and closed his notebook. "Is this a rhetorical question?"

"No," said Toni. " I'm actually serious about this. I mean, there were some knights and warriors in my family tree apparently, way back from before the Hapsburg days, so maybe it's in my blood, like they say!"

"Well," Roderich pondered the best way to answer. "It's not like being a knight does you any particular good nowadays. There isn't any more need for horses and all the dragons are probably dead."

"Only probably." said Toni.

"And who would you fight for? You can't be a vigilante. Knights always pledge their allegiance to a lady or a liege lord or someone. And there isn't royalty in the same sense anymore either. The old monarchs have either been beheaded, replaced, or died of old age. The ones that remain hold very little actual power over their countries." He hesitated, as if he were wondering if he was talking too much. "I guess your original point is correct. This is quite a different world than before."

"You're probably right. It's not like royalty is always a good thing, take the example from my country, heh. And I guess it's kind of useless pretending."

"Yeah. It's not like there's any one particular person worth pledging allegiance to or fighting for. I mean, I try to be a good citizen, but you don't see me groveling before the mayors and ministers and whatnot."

"I don't think that's true." said Toni

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's, you know..." Toni tried to regain his words. "You asked me earlier who I would swear allegiance to if I were a knight, hypothetically. I'd–I'd fight for you, if you'd let me." He looked away, embarrassed, feeling a lot like a child again.

They sat silently. Toni wondered if he'd overstepped his bounds, turning a pretty objective conversation into a place to discuss more personal things, but he couldn't help it. The subjects of knights and royalty and basically anything remotely tinged with romanticism of the past inevitably turned pretty personal for him, unlike Roderich, who tended to try and keep his emotions separate from whatever he was discussing.

"It's probably a silly situation to think of, I know," said Toni after a while. "But–that's just how I feel. I hope you understand."

Roderich smiled faintly. "Maybe not as much as you when it comes to knights and things, but–I understand. And thanks, I guess I mean."


End file.
